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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

PRESENTED  BY 

PROF.  CHARLES  A.  KOFOID  AND 
MRS.  PRUDENCE  W.  KOFOID 


cu_ 


GEOLOGICAL  ANCESTORS 

OF  THE 


BROOK  TROIT 


AND 

RECENT  5AIBLING  FORM5 
FROM  WHICH  IT  EVOLVED 


JOHN  D.  QUACKLNBO5,  A.  M 


Emeritus     Professor     in     Columbia     University 
Fellow  of  the  New  York  Academy  of  Medicine, 
and  of  the  New  Hampshire  Medical  Society 
Member  of  the  New  York  Medical  Associ- 
ation, of  the  American  Medical  As- 
sociation, of    the  American    Asso- 
ciation  for  the  Advancement 
of   Science 


ILLUSTRATED 


PUBLISHED  FOR  THE  ANGLERS'  CLUB  OF  NEW  YORK 


BY 
TOBIAS  A.  WRIGHT 


No.  150  BLEECKER  STREET,  NEW  YORK 
1916 


Read  at  a  regular  meeting  of  the 
Anglers'  Club  of  New  York 
Hotel  Navarre,  March  9th,  1915 


Limited  Edition  of 
Three  Hundred  Signed  Copies 


M358718 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 
Thankword          .......  5 

Hallowword        .......  7 

Foreword           .......  9 

The  Tale  of  the  Fishes 23 

Afterword — Notes  on  the  plates        ....  38 


THANKWORD 

The  author  of  this  monograph  takes  pleasure  in 
acknowledging  his  indebtedness  to  Dr.  William  C. 
Kendall  of  the  United  States  Bureau  of  Fisheries,  who 
has  critically  revised  its  pages  in  the  light  of  researches 
made  by  him  in  many  regions — to  the  Boston  Society 
of  Natural  History  for  a  number  of  the  fish  figures — 
and  to  Walter  H.  Rich  of  Portland,  Maine,  for  the 
color  schemes  of  the  blue  back  and  Dublin  Pond  trouts. 

And  he  owes  the  inspiration,  if  inspiration  it  be, 
that  prompted  the  thought  and  feeling  in  what  suc- 
ceeds to  a  coterie  of  congenial  spirits,  whilom  readers 
with  him  of  the  books  in  the  running  brooks,  now  wait- 
ing his  coming  on  the  farther  shore  of  the  river  we 
cross  but  once. 


HALLOWWORD 

TO  MY  FATHER 

in  commemorative  esteem;  my  beloved  companion  of 
the  lake  and  river,  creator  of  my  taste  for  field  sports, 
the  embodiment  of  all  that  is  refined,  courtly,  humane, 
self-forgetful,  noble,  chivalric  in  the  man — long  a 
dweller  in  that  land  where  earth's  fond  aspirations  are 
perfectly  fulfilled — this  little  volume  is  reverently  and 
affectionately  inscribed. 


FOREWORD 

A  preface  is  rightfully  an  apology,  or  as  a  moat 
defensive  to  a  castle.  The  apologetic  value  of  this  fore- 
word is  left  to  the  scholarly  reader  to  determine.  But 
the  foss  that  separates  him  from  the  entertainment  be- 
yond is  doubtless  the  broadest  and  deepest  he  has  ever 
encountered,  spread  out  like  the  clear  waters  of  a  lake 
of  winsome  prospects  that  distract  from  the  object  of 
its  passage  and  are  lotus-eaten  by  the  soul.  He  will 
find  himself  held  up  by  vista  after  vista  that  will  render 
his  approach  to  what  is  coming  far  from  tedious,  until 
at  the  close  he  is  lost  in  flights  beyond  the  ether. 

In  few,  this  prelude  represents  a  most  impudent  de- 
fiance of  the  canons  of  literary  criticism,  for  which  in- 
fraction of  law  warrant  may  be  found,  especially 
among  anglers,  who  are  traditionally  careless  of  statu- 
tory requirements  and  quite  ready  to  plead  the  thread- 
bare excuse  of  ignorantia  legis.  Who  among  us  has 
not  gone  a  fishing  the  day  before  the  law  "went  off?" 
When  the  fever  of  impatient  expectation  reaches  its 


THE     TALE     OF     THE      FISHES 

height,  the  delirious  subject  has  been  known  to  act  on 
the  assumption  of  Louis  XIV.,  "  L'etat  c'est  moi."  So 
I  may  be  forgiven  for  taking  the  law  into  my  own  hands 
and  rambling  afield  among  the  esthetics  and  amenities 
of  angling. 

The  following  pages  were  written  by  an  angler 
for  anglers.  An  angler  is  a  true  sportsman.  He  takes 
fish  in  a  chivalrous  manner,  never  for  the  mere  pleasure 
of  killing.  He  is  always  humane,  courteous,  and  un- 
selfish. He  must  be  a  gentleman.  Angling  is  some- 
thing more  than  catching  fish,  in  that  it  is  not  a  means  of 
obtaining  a  livelihood.  It  implies  a  certain  degree  of 
aesthetic  culture,  and  is  thus  pre-eminently  the  pastime 
of  the  man  of  letters,  the  brain  worker's  diversion.  The 
meditative,  benevolent,  magnanimous  nature  of  the  an- 
gler is  proverbial — his  sympathetic  disposition,  his  re- 
gard for  the  rights  of  others,  his  moderation  in  pursuit 
of  his  sport.  Angling  may  therefore  be  appropriately 
defined  as  a  "school  of  virtues"  in  which  men  learn 
lessons  of  wisdom,  resignation,  forbearance,  and  love — 
love  for  the  lower  forms  of  animal  life,  love  for  their 
fellow-creatures,  and  love  for  the  God  of  nature. 

The  scholarly  angler  is  naturally  interested  in  the 


10 


THE     TALE     OF     THE      FISHES 

history  of  his  craft,  a  "holy  and  virtuous  recreation" 
long  before  the  days  of  Nimrod.  He  finds  in  troglo- 
dyte tracings  of  fishes  evidence  that  cave  men  of  the 
paleolithic  age  were  as  susceptible  as  he  to  its  fas- 
cinations. He  fishes  in  imagination  with  prehistoric 
brothers  who  engraved  upon  their  ornaments  rude  repre- 
sentations of  angling  scenes  and  exploits.  He  ex- 
amines, in  the  remains  of  lacustrine  settlements,  the  fish- 
ing implements  of  the  neolithic  age.  From  Egyptian 
paintings,  he  learns  that  angling  was  considered  an 
amusement  worthy  of  the  leisure  of  the  high-born; 
Mexican  pictographs  suggest  the  systematic  instruction 
in  this  art  offered  to  the  Aztec  youth ;  and  disentombed 
fish-hooks  of  bronze  and  gold  give  inkling  of  the  lux- 
urious tackle  in  use  among  the  subjects  of  the  Incas. 
Both  Greeks  and  Romans  pursued  angling  for  amuse- 
ment's sake.  From  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  to  Oppian's 
"Halieuticks,"  a  second  century  treatise  in  verse  on  the 
natural  history  of  fishes  and  the  ancient  methods  of  cap- 
turing them,  there  were  piscatory  poets  who  dwelt  on 
the  delights  of  their  favorite  avocation. 

The  angler  has  a  fellowly  feeling  for  them  all. 
He  finds  the  first  allusion  to  fly  fishing  in  the  Epigrams 

ii 


THE     TALE     OF      THE      FISHES 

of  Martial,  wherein  is  sung  the  rising  of  the  feast- 
famous  Scarus  (akin  to  our  tautog)  "decoyed  by 
fraudful  flies,"  and  delights  in  the  consummate  descrip- 
tion of  this  method  of  angling  for  trout  as  told  by 
Claudius  Elian  in  a  second  century  zoology.  Ausonius 
of  Bordeaux  (4th  century  A.  D.)  in  his  "Mosella" 
speaks  of  the  Salar  (common  brown  trout)  "starred 
with  spots,"  and  then  there  is  a  break  in  the  literature 
relating  to  this  subject  until  we  come  to  the  interesting 
work  of  Dame  Juliana  Berners,  prioress  of  Sopwell 
Nunnery  at  St.  Albans,  the  first  English  authoress  and 
the  earliest  writer  in  English  on  field  sports — "A  Trea- 
tyse  of  Fysshynge  wyth  an  Angle,"  printed  in  England 
in  1496.  This  treatise,  probably  a  compilation  from 
monkish  manuscripts  that  are  lost,  presents  detailed  in- 
structions for  the  manufacture  of  tackle  and  describes 
minutely  a  "Jurie  of  XII  flyes  wyth  wyche  ye  shall 
angle  to  ye  trought  and  grayllyng."  These  flies  I  have 
had  tied  by  a  modern  expert  in  accordance  with  the 
directions  given  in  the  treatise,  and  they  not  only  do 
credit  to  the  taste  of  "Fishin'  Julie,"  but  are  without 
superiors  among  the  novelties  of  to-day. 

The  good  Dame's  monograph  proved  a  source  of 


12 


THE     TALE     OF     THE      FISHES 

inspiration  to  a  horde  of  succeeding  writers  who 
scrupled  not  to  adopt  the  nun's  sentiments  and  borrow 
her  instructions  verbatim.  Leonard  Mascall's  "Booke 
of  Fishing  with  Hooke  and  Line"  (1590),  the  next 
work  of  importance  in  England,  is  largely  a  reproduc- 
tion of  the  Essay  of  the  literary  prioress.  "The  Secrets 
of  Angling,"  a  poem  by  John  Dennys,  appeared  in 
1*613;  and  in  1651  Thomas  Barker's  "The  Art  of 
Angling,"  the  first  book  in  which  the  reel  is  described, 
although  some  find  evidence  of  its  earlier  use  in  certain 
allusions  of  Shakespeare,  who  as  a  youth  pursued  the 
fish  fauna  of  his  native  Avon.  Meanwhile  there  was 
published  at  Lyons  (1554)  Rondelet's  "De  Piscibus," 
from  whose  quaint  Latin  the  reader  may  glean  many 
an  angling  axiom;  and  he  is  fortunate  who  lays  hand 
on  du  Bartas'  "Devine  Weekes  and  Workes,"  rare 
book  of  1605,  thought  with  good  reason  to  have  in- 
spired the  pen  of  John  Milton,  in  which  is  told  the  loves 
and  habits  of  the  "speckle-starred"  trout  that  frequents 
the  "swift  tumbling  Torrents  and  the  sleepie  Pooles" 
(Sylvester's  translation).  How  the  angler  revels  in 
these  old  expositions  that  precede  the  great  classic  of 
1653,  Walton's  "Compleat  Angler;  or,  the  Contem- 

13 


THE     TALE     OF     THE      FISHES 

plative  Man's  Recreation,"  which  has  reached  its  one 
hundredth  edition.  Of  this  book  Charles  Lamb  wrote : 
"It  would  sweeten  a  man's  temper  at  any  time  to  read 
it;  it  would  Christianize  every  discordant  angry  pas- 
sion." Behither  the  date  of  its  first  publication,  at 
least  one  thousand  volumes  have  been  written  on  sub- 
jects connected  with  fishing,  so  that  the  literature  of 
angling  is  one  of  the  richest  departments  of  English 
letters.  The  enthusiast  who  wades  through  this  litera- 
ture may  dredge  from  its  mud  of  commonplace  many 
a  pearl  of  thought  and  not  a  little  gold  of  practical 
suggestion.  And,  when  so  informed  by  the  angling 
writers  of  other  days,  he  is  prepared  to  receive  enlight- 
enment from  a  constellation  of  modern  specialists,  and 
graduate  a  proficient  not  only  in  the  literature  of  the 
knightly  art,  but  in  every  branch  of  its  technic. 

And  then  your  angler  is  a  scientician.  He  discrimi- 
nates, reflects,  strives  to  master  mysteries.  Investigation 
is  a  favorite  divertisement.  A  trout  with  strange  mark- 
ings stirs  his  curiosity.  He  looks  for  accurate  knowl- 
edge regarding  its  origin  and  life  history.  He  reaches 
back  into  those  absolute  beginnings  that  are  beyond  the 
stretch  of  exact  cognizance,  and  becomes  deep  scienced 


THE     TALE     OF     THE      FISHES 

in  the  mazy  lore.  The  very  rocks  with  their  beryls 
and  garnets  and  tourmalin  prisms,  their  striations,  In- 
dian kettles,  and  caverns  dripping  stalactite,  speak  in 
voices  of  impassioned  truth.  The  mountain  streams  he 
fishes  and  the  water  gaps  disclose  their  story  of  erosion, 
of  ranges  slowly  rising,  of  rivers  enforcing  their  right 
of  way  through  barriers  which  vainly  sought  to  block 
their  paths.  His  pursuit  tends  to  develop  in  the  angler 
the  instincts  of  a  philosopher.  He  naturally  informs 
himself  also  regarding  the  plant  life  associated  with  his 
sport,  the  pink  and  snowy  chequer  of  the  spring;  the 
mosses,  and  fungi  and  ferns;  the  rose  purple  fire  weeds, 
blue  gentians,  cardinal  clusters,  and  silvery  clematis 
tangles  of  the  summer;  the  waxy  stems  of  Indian  pipe 
nodding  their  corpse-white  flowers  over  the  roots  on 
which  they  feed,  and  orchid  beauties  that  tessellate  the 
forest  floors  or  hide  their  blooming  wonders  in  the 
wannish-gray  light  of  the  fens.  He  loves  to  familiar- 
ize himself  with  the  phenomena  of  their  growth  and 
multiplication.  He  knows  the  language  the  wild 
flowers  speak — the  trilliums  streaked  with  flame,  the 
anemones  and  arbutus  tufts  of  May,  the  slipper-shaped 
cypripediums,  the  violets  that  spangle  the  meadows,  the 


THE     TALE     OF      THE      FISHES 

honeysuckles  in  orient  pearl  breathing  their  odors 
through  the  June  days,  and  the  blackberry  blossoms 
that  Walt  Whitman  said  would  adorn  the  parlors  of 
Heaven.  But  "born  to  joy  and  pleasance,"  queen  of 
his  heart  among  them  all, 

"O'er  her  tall  blades  the  crested  fleur-de-lis, 
Like  blue-eyed  Pallas,  towers  erect  and  free." 
And  lastly,  as  you  have  inferred,  the  true  angler 
is  more  or  less  of  a  poet.  He  is  peculiarly  susceptible 
to  the  beautiful.  By  beauty  I  mean  a  true  quality, 
incapable  of  analysis  but  appreciable  by  a  mode  of  per- 
ception, and  perfectly  real  to  the  perceiver.  We  can- 
not define  it,  but  we  can  realize  that  it  means  thought 
or  feeling  uttered  in  some  perfect  form  by  the  divine 
reason  or  the  imagination  of  man.  It  is  the  manifesta- 
tion of  an  aesthetic  idea.  The  principle  that  seems  to 
explain  it,  that  lies  at  the  basis  of  all  beautiful  impres- 
sion, is  the  principle  of  harmony,  which  involves  the 
action  of  God's  universal  laws  on  substances  and  forces 
of  His  creation,  to  realize  in  each  case  some  specific 
purpose  of  His  own.  In  this  consists  design,  the  adapt- 
ation of  means  to  an  end.  In  this  is  comprehended  the 
happy  fulfillments  of  function  in  living  things,  whereby 

16 


THE     TALE     OF     THE      FISHES 

Ruskin  explained  vital  beauty. 

An  aesthetic  person  is  one  who  can  perceive  and 
loves  the  beautiful.  Aesthetic  pleasure  results  from 
the  perception  of  beauty  in  nature,  art,  or  literature,  in 
the  human  intellect,  or  in  character.  Ugliness,  the 
opposite  of  beauty,  gives  rise  to  aesthetic  pain.  Beauty, 
grandeur  and  pathos,  then — all  that  can  soothe  the 
mind,  gratify  the  imagination,  or  move  the  affections — 
belong  the  province  of  the  aesthetic,  and  give  rise  to 
feelings  which  constitute  a  most  important  element  in 
happiness.  The  indulgence  of  such  aesthetic  feelings 
brightens  and  elevates  life.  On  the  other  hand,  mere 
absence  of  beauty,  or  the  presence  of  what  is  aesthetic- 
ally ugly,  tends  to  make  men  depressed  and  miserable 
and  hard  to  live  with.  Nothing  is  so  insignificant  that 
it  has  not  a  beautiful  side,  that  it  does  not  suggest  some 
glimpse  of  spiritual  loveliness;  and  no  pen  can  depict 
the  power  of  a  soul  that  recognizes  the  beautiful  in 
the  humblest  creations  of  God,  and  lives  in  an  atmos- 
phere of  poetry — of  beauty  plus  spirituality,  of  trans- 
figured life. 

The  art  of  living  is  the  art  of  filling  every  hour  of 
life  with  beautiful  thoughts,  beautiful  deeds,  kindness 

17 


THE     TALE     OF     THE      FISHES 

graciously  expressed.     It  is  life  for  the  best  things,  the 
highest  things. 

Such  a  life  the  genuine  angler  normally  lives.  He 
gathers  the  spiritual  interpretation.  To  him,  all  mat- 
ter is  ensouled.  The  quiet  woods  are  conscious.  Such 
a  man  was  my  colleague  at  Columbia  University,  Gen- 
eral William  Pettit  Trowbridge,  Professor  of  Engi- 
neering, and  a  fellow  member  of  the  Hammonasset 
Fishing  Club  of  New  Haven.  After  his  untimely 
death  in  1893,  I  wrote  the  following  commemorative 
poem  in  quatrains  modeled  after  those  of  Fitzgerald's 
translation  of  the  Rubaiyat,  and  entitled  it  "May 
Memories."  It  utters  the  spirit  of  true  angling  as  I 
interpret  it,  and  is  here  given  to  the  American  reader 
for  the  first  time. 

MAY    MEMORIES 

(Meo  Amico  Jucundo) 

The  days  have  come  when  we  were  wont  to  dream 
Of  blossom'd  branch,  bird  song,  and  plenteous  stream, 

That  bosom  friend  and  I.     Ah!  me,  how  sad 
To  word  alone  the  old  heart-cheering  theme. 

18 


THE     TALE     OF     THE      FISHES 

Alone,  for  now  he  sleeps  beneath  the  grass, 

Dear  comrade,  godlike  man,  death-claim'd —  Alas ! 

Alone  by  Hammonasett's  side  I  drift 
The  deft  decoys  as  whispering  waters  mass, 

With  thought  of  him.  His  form  I  all  but  see, 
His  manly  glance,  his  carriage  proud  and  free, 

His  jacket  dight  with  purple  pinxter-flowers — 
Oh!  how  I  priz'd  his  unselfish  love  for  me. 

And  oft  he  pluck'd  some  wild-blow  by  the  burn, 
Pausing  its  petals  reverently  to  turn, 

And  read  such  impress  of  Supreme  design, 
That  angels  might  have  stoop'd  to  look  and  learn. 

So  side  by  side  we  lived  as  one  and  lo'ed 
The  weird  inspiring  stillness  of  the  wood, 

The  flow  of  brook,  the  summer  hush  of  lake, 
The  glossy  meres  where  water-lilies  bud, 

The  hum  of  toiling  bee,  the  nesting  trill, 
The  flush  of  dawn  and  sky-set  daffodil, 

The  sacrament  of  souls  as  wood  glooms  fall 
And  wakes  Gray  Twilight's  voice  of  "Whip-poor-will." 

'Tis  gone — I  see  a  grave  in  city  fair, 
And  tear-swept  faces  bending  low  in  prayer, 

And  blanch'd  hands  stretch'd  from  sable  robes  to  lay 
Pale  roses  on  the  lov'd  form  resting  there. 


THE     TALE     OF      THE      FISHES 

And  O  my  God !  I  cry,  as  I  along 

The  woodland  ways  mid  vernal  bloom  and  song — 

That  ties  like  this  must  break,  that  earth  must  lose 
Such  lives  so  gentle,  chivalrous,  and  strong. 

Yet  sweet  the  memories  of  that  absent  friend — 
Absent,  not  lost,  Oh !  who  may  comprehend 

Those  flashes  of  his  presence  at  the  stream 
Dimpled  by  trout  where  feathery  brackens  bend. 

The  man  who  gives  his  softer  hours  to  angling  as 
I  have  pictured  it,  who  walks  beneath  the  branch  and 
under  the  simpleness  of  the  sky,  impressionable  by 
supreme  realities,  receives  cosmic  vibrations  impalpable 
to  the  carnal  touch,  thinks  thoughts  that  fade  not  with 
the  setting  sun.  He  brings  home  to  himself  the  divine 
amenities  of  our  gentle  craft  in  which  he  finds  the 
alembic  for  jaded  brain  and  woe-tyed  heart.  For  he 
is  en  rapport  with  the  Soul  of  the  Wild,  that  myster- 
ious Presence  which,  to  quote  from  "Tintern  Abbey," 
disturbs  one  with  "the  joy  of  elevated  thoughts," 

*'A  sense  sublime 

Of  something  far  more  deeply  interfused, 
Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns, 
And  the  round  ocean  and  the  living  air, 


20 


THE     TALE     OF     THE      FISHES 

And  the  blue  sky,  and  in  the  mind  of  man: 
A  motion  and  a  spirit,  that  impels 
All  thinking  things,  all  objects  of  all  thought, 
And  rolls  through  all  things.     Therefore  I  am  still 
A  lover  of  the  meadows  and  the  woods, 
And  mountains,  and  of  all  that  we  behold 
From  this  green  earth — well  pleased  to  recognize 
In  nature  and  the  language  of  the  sense, 
The  anchor  of  my  purest  thought,  the  nurse, 
The  guide,  the  guardian  of  my  heart,  and  soul 
Of  all  my  moral  being." 

And  this  must  be  my  apology  for  presenting  the 
pages  that  follow. 


21 


THE  TALE  OF  THE  FISHES 

In  the  summer  of  1882,  while  casting  for  black  bass 
at  Lake  Sunapee,  N.  H.,  I  was  asked  by  a  gentleman 
fishing  from  a  boat  nearby  to  weigh  a  large  trout  that 
he  had  just  caught.  The  trout  had  been  taken  in 
comparatively  deep  water,  was  silvery  in  coloration, 
and  had  a  practically  square  tail.  It  weighed  just  4 
pounds,  "What  is  it?"  the  captor  asked.  After  a 
moment's  thought,  I  said,  "Why,  it  is  a  brook  trout" — 
for  it  was  evidently  neither  a  blue-back  (Sahelinus 
oquassa)  nor  a  laker  with  mackerel  tail  (Sahelinus 
namaycush) ,  and  Agassiz  had  said  there  were  only 
three  trouts  in  New  England.  So  by  exclusion  it  must 
be  fontinalis  I  did  not  know  for  three  years  that  I 
had  discovered  on  that  July  day  a  new  species  of 
Sahelinus  not  known  at  that  time  to  exist  on  the  Amer- 
ican continent.  But  such  proved  to  be  the  fact.  In 
October,  1885,  a  boy  of  the  neighborhood  accidentally 
came  upon  a  midlake  spawning-bed,  an  acre  or  two 
in  area,  covered  with  hundreds  of  the  new  fish  ranging 


THE     TALE     OF     THE      FISHES 

from  one  to  ten  pounds  in  weight,  and  reported  his  dis- 
covery to  the  Fish  Commissioner.  Specimens  were 
at  once  sent  to  Washington  and  Cambridge  for  identi- 
fication, and  there  followed  an  animated  discussion  of 
six  years  duration  in  regard  to  the  origin  of  the  form, 
some  contending  that  it  was  descended  from  German 
saibling  imported  from  Europe  (none  of  which,  how- 
ever, found  their  way  into  Lake  Sunapee) ,  others  that 
is  was  an  overgrown  blueback  (this  species  having 
been  introduced  from  Maine  a  number  of  years  be- 
fore) ,  some  few  that  it  was  a  hybrid,  and  others  again 
that  it  was  an  aboriginal  variety.  Owing  to  its  silvery 
appearance  in  summer,  it  came  to  be  known  as  the 
"white  trout. 

But  the  Sunapee  fish  is  not  a  trout  at  all;  it  is  a 
c/iarr,  in  common  with  the  so-called  brook  and  lake 
trouts.  Charrs  derive  their  name  from  a  Gaelic  word 
meaning  red  or  blood-colored,  and  thus  appropriately 
describing  the  ruddy  charms  of  these  fishes.  They  are 
distinguished  from  trout,  not  only  by  their  more  gaudy 
rose  madder  or  orange  coloration,  especially  at  the 
nuptial  season,  but  also  by  the  absence  of  teeth  on  the 
body  of  the  vomer,  a  boat-shaped  bone  in  the  front 

24 


THE     TALE     OF     THE      FISHES 

part  of  the  roof  of  the  mouth.  Trouts  (Salmones) 
have  a  single  or  double  row  of  teeth  on  this  bone. 
Charrs  (Salvelini)  have  teeth  only  on  the  head  or 
chevron  of  the  vomer  in  the  back  part  of  the  roof  of 
the  mouth,  and  these  often  feebly  developed.  The 
charrs  are  more  beautiful,  more  gracefully  shaped, 
more  intelligent,  wary,  and  difficult  of  capture,  and 
more  delicately  flavored,  than  the  trouts,  and  hence 
are  more  highly  treasured  by  the  angler.  They  are 
accounted  the  aristocracy  of  our  Salmonidae.  The 
common  lake  trout  (togue  or  longe),  the  blue  back, 
the  Dolly  Varden  trout,  a  western  cousin  of  our  brook 
trout,  and  the  Sunapee  form  are  charrs.  The  cut- 
throat or  black-spotted  trout  of  the  Pacific  Slope,  the 
rainbow  trout,  with  the  brown  trout  of  Europe  and 
the  Loch  Leven  trout,  both  which  latter  have  been 
acclimated  in  American  waters,  are  true  trouts. 

Our  discussion  regarding  the  Sunapee  saibling 
brought  out  the  fact  that  there  were  congeneric  sea-run 
forms  in  Canada,  and  that  our  fish  and  forms  like  it 
of  a  highly  variable  Alpine  charr,  were  indigenous  to 
the  Northland.  So  we  decided  on  the  evidence  that 
it  was  home-grown — a  representative  relic  of  a  race 

25 


THE     TALE     OF     THE      FISHES 

once  widely  distributed — when  all  our  lakes  were  cold 
and  pure  and  pebbly,  but  gradually  becoming  extinct 
as  the  great  glacier  melted  toward  the  north  and  the 
waters  in  its  wake  grew  warm.  It  is  known  to  survive 
in  three  New  England  lakes,  Sunapee  and  Dan  Hole 
Pond  in  New  Hampshire,  and  Flood's  Pond  in  the 
town  of  Otis,  near  Mt.  Desert  in  Maine — all  three  very 
deep  and  excessively  cold,  and  well  stocked  with  the 
native  food  of  the  saibling.  In  many  other  lakes  it  has 
presumably  been  starved  out  and  killed  by  rising  tem- 
perature, as  has  been  the  case  in  Europe,  charrs  having 
become  extinct  in  some  waters,  notably  Loch  Leven, 
almost  within  the  memory  of  living  men. 

Changing  conditions  modify  fish  forms,  and  it  was 
suggested  that  this  charr  now  known  as  the  Salvelinus 
alpinus  aureolas  from  its  golden  hue,  was  the  parent 
type  from  which  our  charrs  of  the  brook  and  lake  differ- 
entiated. The  lake  trout,  however,  can  not  be  a  deriv- 
ative from  this  square-tailed  fish,  but  is  rather  a  variant 
from  some  older  fork-tailed  stock,  which,  together  with 
the  remote  ancestors  of  the  saibling  group,  is  divergent 
from  a  still  earlier  common  primordial  forbear — a 
theory  strengthened  by  the  discovery  of  fossil  trout 

26 


THE     TALE     OF     THE      FISHES 

in  deposits  of  the  cold  Pleistocene  Period.  But  the 
close  relationship  that  exists  between  the  Sunapee  saib- 
ling  and  the  common  fontinalis,  and  the  existence  of  an 
intermediate  form  in  Dublin  Pond,  N.  H.,  half  way 
along  in  the  process  of  differentiation,  with  structural 
peculiarities,  points  of  coloration,  and  habits  peculiar 
in  part  both  to  the  ancestral  saibling  and  the  derived 
brook  trout,  establishes  my  contention  that  our  beauty 
of  the  brooks,  as  conditions  changed  in  post-glacial 
time,  differentiated  from  this  quaternary  charr. 

The  distinguishing  features  of  the  Sunapee  fish 
are  the  presence  of  basi-branchial  teeth  as  described  be- 
tween the  lower  extremities  of  the  first  two  gill  arches; 
the  total  absence  of  mottling  or  vermiculation  on  the 
dark  sea-green  back  and  excessively  developed  fins;  in- 
conspicuous yellow  spots  without  a  suggestion  of  areola ; 
a  slightly  emarginate  tail ;  a  small  and  delicately  shaped 
head,  diminutive  aristocratic  mouth,  liquid  planetary 
eyes,  and  a  generally  graceful  build;  a  phenomenally 
brilliant  nuptial  coloration,  recalling  the  foreign  appel- 
latives of  "gilt  charr"  and  "golden  saibling." 

It  hugs  the  pure  polar  depths  of  the  lake  at  a  tem- 
perature of  38  to  45  degrees  Fahrenheit  under  the  pres- 

27 


THE     TALE     OF      THE      FISHES 

sure  of  100  feet  of  water,  until  the  penetrating  chill 
of  autumn  reminds  it  of  its  connubial  obligations.  These 
are  met  the  last  week  in  October  by  the  ascent  of  a 
serried  column  many  thousand  strong  to  a  rocky  shoal 
set  in  the  geographical  centre  of  the  lake.  Every  saib- 
ling  capable  of  procreation  seeks  this  spawning-bed 
for  it  is  the  only  one  in  the  lake  over  which  a  current 
sets  toward  the  outlet.  The  constant  change  of  water 
implied  in  such  a  current  is  necessary  to  the  life  of  the 
eggs.  Their  healthy  development  depends  upon  aera- 
tion. All  this,  the  parent  fish  are  instinctively  aware  of, 
so  they  will  not  deposit  eggs  on  any  other  reef  no  mat- 
ter how  otherwise  well  adapted  or  convenient,  nor  on 
the  motionless  sandy  bottoms. 

As  the  pairing-time  approaches,  the  Sunapee  fish 
becomes  resplendent  with  the  flushes  of  maturing  pas- 
sion. The  steel  green  mantle  of  the  back  and  shoulders 
now  seems  to  dissolve  into  a  dreamy  "bloom"  of  ame- 
thyst through  which  the  daffodil  spots  of  midsummer 
blaze  out  in  points  of  flame,  while  below  the  lateral 
line  all  is  dazzling  orange.  The  fins  catch  the  tones 
of  the  adjacent  parts,  and  pectoral,  ventral,  anal,  and 
lower  lobe  of  caudal  are  striped  with  a  snowy  white 

28 


THE     TALE     OF     THE      FISHES 

band.  There  are  conspicuous  differences  in  intensity 
of  general  coloration,  and  the  gaudy  dyes  of  the  milter 
are  tempered  in  the  spawner  to  a  creamy  white  or  olive 
chrome,  with  spots  of  orient  opal.  The  wedding  gar- 
ment nature  has  given  to  this  charr  is  indeed  agleam 
with  heavenly  alchemy. 

And  its  pursuit  and  capture  with  a  five-ounce  six- 
strip  and  delicate  tackle  baffles  description,  for  the 
game  qualities  of  the  white  trout  are  estimated  to  be 
double  those  of  the  fontlnalis.  To  land  a  4-pound 
saibling  in  his  prime  implies  the  sublimination  of  vigi- 
lance and  dexterity.  The  fish  holds  the  coign  of  van- 
tage. When  he  stands  back  and  with  bull-dog  pertin- 
acity wrenches  savagely  at  the  line — when  he  doubles 
in  a  desperate  dash  for  liberty,  the  angler  is  at  his 
mercy.  But,  brother  of  the  sleave-silk  and  tinsel,  when 
you  gaze  upon  your  captive  lying  asphyxiated  on  the 
surface,  his  last  mad  rush  for  life  frustrated,  his  last 
wintle  over,  a  synthesis  of  qualities  that  make  a  perfect 
fish — when  you  disengage  him  from  the  meshes  of  the 
landing  net,  and  place  his  icy  figure  in  your  outstretched 
palms,  and  watch  the  tropaeolin  glow  of  his  awakening 
loves  soften  into  cream  tints,  and  the  cream  tints  pale 


29 


THE     TALE     OF     THE      FISHES 

into  the  pearl  of  moonstone  as  the  muscles  of  respira- 
tion grow  feebler  and  more  irregular  in  their  contraction 
— you  will  experience  an  erethism  of  internal  exalta- 
tion that  the  capture  of  no  other  fish  can  excite.  It 
is  this  after-come  of  pleasure,  this  delight  of  contempla- 
tion and  speculation  of  which  the  scientific  angler  never 
wearies,  that  lends  a  charm  absolutely  sui  generis  to  the 
pursuit  of  this  Alpine  charr — a  fish  of  which  it  has 
been  said  that  one  can  not  study  its  fascinating  past  as 
an  autochthon  and  familiarize  himself  with  its  impres- 
sive life  habits  without  conviction,  as  he  becomes  ac- 
quainted with  the  wonderful  evolution  implied  in  its 
survival,  of  the  existence  of  a  God. 

And  this  is  the  fish  from  which  has  diverged  our 
"gold-sprinkled  living  arrow  of  the  white  water,  able 
to  zigzag  up  the  cataract,  able  to  loiter  in  the  rapids, 
whose  dainty  meat  is  the  glancing  butterfly"  (Myron 
Reed) .  Can  we  wonder  that  he  is  the  one  perfect  fish 
in  all  the  world?  God  be  praised  that  he  had  the  good 
taste  to  abandon  in  the  course  of  his  evolution  the 
lacustrine  depths  where  we  never  should  have  known 
him,  and  give  his  life  to  the  riffles  that  chatter  through 
the  enameled  champaign  and  to  the  stately  flow  of 


THE     TALE     OF     THE      FISHES 

the  silent  river  under  the  demitints  of  the  soundless 
forest. 

The  missing  link  between  these  two  fishes  that  I 
confidently  designate  as  such,  is  the  pale  gray  or  silver 
trout  of  Dublin  Pond,  N.  H.,  called  after  the  great 
naturalist  Sahelinus  agassizii.  Since  the  country  was 
opened  and  its  fish  fauna  were  noted  by  man,  the 
brook  trout  and  this  unique  salmonoid  have  lived  to- 
gether in  the  cold,  deep  (125  ft.)  spring-fed  pond 
under  the  shadow  of  Monadnock  mountain.  The  two 
species  have  used  the  same  spawning  beds  from  date 
immemorial,  though  at  different  times,  and  have  never 
hybridized.  Under  similar  conditions,  the  Alpine  and 
the  brook  trout  have  co-existed  in  Lake  $imapee,  the 
ancestral  fish  following,  like  man  and  the  higher  mam- 
malia, but  by  watery  channels,  the  retreating  ice  fields, 
and  swarming  into  the  granite  basin  of  this  lake  exca- 
vated anew  for  its  reception  by  the  erosive  power  of 
the  glacier  and  filled  with  melting  snows.  Here  it  was 
all  but  exterminated,  owing  to  the  depredations  of  its 
enemies,  the  yellow  perch  and  the  miller's  thumb,  when 
black  bass  were  introduced  in  1868  to  destroy  these 
enemies  in  turn  and  afford  it  a  chance  to  increase.  Fish 


THE     TALE     OF      THE      FISHES 

culture  has  since  added  many  millions  to  its  ranks. 

The  Dublin  Pond  trout  has  perplexed  the  most 
eminent  ichthyologists.  It  has  been  classed  as  a  lake 
trout  (namaycush) ,  for  its  tail  is  somewhat  forked 
and  it  attains  a  weight  of  3  to  4  Ibs. — as  a  lissome 
pattern  of  the  brook  trout — as  a  mere  color  variation  of 
the  same  fish — and  Agassiz  decided  that  it  was  an  inde- 
pendent form  allied  to  the  deep  water  charrs  of  the 
Swiss  lakes,  and  predicted  that  it  would  be  found  else- 
where, for  he  did  not  believe  nature  made  this  beautiful 
fish  for  one  little  pond  in  New  Hampshire.  And  he 
was  right.  The  subsequent  discovery  of  Alpine  forms 
justified  his  assumption.  And  Dr.  W.  C.  Kendall,  of 
the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Fisheries,  has  called  my  attention 
to  the  existence,  north  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  of  charrs 
classified  as  fontinalis,  that  are  more  nearly  allied  to 
the  ancestral  saibling  group  than  to  the  brook  trout — 
true  intermediate  congeneric  forms  that  strengthen  the 
induction.  Some  years  ago  I  described  in  the  Ameri- 
can Angler  one  species  resembling  the  Dublin  fish  in 
build  and  coloration,  specimens  having  been  sent  to  me 
from  the  Province  of  Quebec — as  pale  and  opalescent, 
with  furcate  tail  and  hardly  visible  lemon  spots,  that 


THE     TALE     OF     THE      FISHES 

looked  to  me  as  its  Dublin  congener  appeared  to  a 
local  writer — like  "a  bar  of  mother  of  pearl." 

The  charr  in  question  is  closely  allied  to  the  Suna- 
pee  saibling,  favoring  this  fish  in  its  deep-water  and 
lake-spawning  habits  (on  stony  shallows,  and  not  in 
the  outlet — there  are  no  inlets)  ;  in  the  presence  in  some 
specimens  of  teeth  on  the  root  of  the  tongue;  in  its 
deeply  notched  or  lunate  tail;  and  in  the  absence  of 
mottling  on  its  back  of  "solid  green  with  silvery  glints." 
But  in  its  habit  of  rising  to  the  surface  in  search  of 
insect  food  during  May  and  early  June,  when  it  readily 
takes  a  fly,  worm,  or  minnow;  in  its  assumption  of 
occasional  vermilion  spots  aureoled  with  blue  or  lilac 
halo;  and  in  the  characteristic  marbling  on  the  dorsal 
fin  and  upper  lobe  of  the  caudal,  it  resembles  the  brook 
trout.  Whereas  this  latter  fish  can  change  his  shades 
in  twenty  minutes  to  adjust  himself  to  a  color  environ- 
ment, he  can  not  at  will  marble  his  fins  and  back  with 
vermiculations  and  punctulate  his  ocellated  skin  with 
spots  of  fire  in  lilac  frame,  to  engage  the  eye  and  rivet 
the  affections  of  his  paramour.  No  Michael  Angelo 
was  He  who  fashioned  the  temple  of  this  exquisite  fish 
form  made  perfect  through  millennia  of  differentiation 


33 


THE     TALE     OF     THE      FISHES 

in  the  evolutionary  process — for  the  pleasure  of  man. 
And  the  lacustrian  charr  that  has  for  thousands  of  years 
affected  the  mysterious  depths  of  Dublin  Pond  repre- 
sents a  lingering  "relic,"  Dr.  Kendall  suggests  to  me, 
"of  a  southward  distribution  of  the  intermediate  race" 
with  many  representatives  still  surviving  in  Canadian 
waters — the  present-day  derivative  having  become 
specialized  in  the  common  brook  trout  we  all  know  and 
love  so  well.  The  very  mention  of  that  name  fills  each 
of  us  with  eagerness.  Another  month  or  two  and  he 
will  be  awaiting  our  deftly  offered  temptations  in  the 
nearby  streams — and  is  he  not  associated  with  all  that 
makes  our  Northern  spring  the  very  proxy  of  Heaven? 

In  that  glad  season  atween  June  and  May— 

When  chlorophyl  tints  leaf  and  bud, 
And  incense  breathes  from  field  and  wood 

Of  blooms  run  idle  through  the  days 

Of  languid  clouds  and  mountain  haze, 
When  music  such  as  art  knows  not 

Bursts  from  each  joyous  feathered  throat, 
And  endless  factors  swell  the  bliss 

Of  a  soul-spelling  synthesis — 

I  can  but  obey  the  call  of  the  wild,  and  am  con- 
34 


THE     TALE     OF     THE      FISHES 

strained  to  repeat  the  old,  old  invitation,  but  couched 
in  verses  of  my  own  making : — 

Come,  gentle  friend,  and  hie  with  me 

Through  pastures  violet-pied, 
To  wet  the  yellow  May  fly 

In  the  rude  stream's  foam-beat  tide, 

Where  broidered  in  azalea  spray 

The  thickets  blush  recluse, 
And  towers  beside  the  queachy  path 

The  sky-dyed  flower-de-luce. 

Come,  float  your  lure  o'er  dusky  pool, 
Heart-clutched  by  surging  hopes, 

Where  melt  in  one  a  hundred  springs 
Sped  from  high-blooming  slopes. 

A  rise!  a  fish!  How  flit  your  looks 
'Twixt   certainty   and   doubt — 

'Tis  mine  to  watch  your  rod  respond 
To  rush  of  steel-struck  trout. 

And  now  among  the  fern  he  lies, 

A  roseate  blaze  in  green; 
What  brush  may  paint,  what  pen  describe 

That  symmetry  and  sheen. 

35 


THE     TALE     OF      THE      FISHES 

And  as  his  glorious  colors  fade, 

Deep  thoughts  crowd  rathe  and  rife, 

For  pictured  in  the  lapsing  stream 
Is  limned  the  tale  of  life. 

How  much  in  common  we  enjoy 

These  pleasures  of  the  rod! 
They  cement  friendship  here,  and  lift 

To  commerce  with  our  God. 

« 

Since  this  paper  was  written,  Dr.  Kendall  has  dis- 
covered in  Christine  Lake,  in  the  township  of  Stark, 
Coos  Co.,  N.  H.,  a  beautiful  fish  form  intermediate 
between  the  Dublin  Pond  trout  and  the  brook  trout, 
thus  undeniably  confirming  the  author's  theory  of  evo- 
lution. The  Kendall  fish  represents  a  more  advanced 
degree  of  the  differential  step  toward  the  fontinalis, 
nearer  to  it  than  any  other  divergent  form.  The  Dub- 
lin Pond  charr  is  a  late  divergent,  but  the  new  species 
is  still  more  recent.  It  is  small,  rarely  attaining  a 
weight  of  half  a  pound,  but  game.  Its  mackerel  shape 
is  more  graceful  in  outline  than  that  of  the  brook  trout. 
The  tail  is  decidedly  forked.  The  colors  emulate 
those  of  the  Sunapee  saibling,  the  sides  being  profusely 
dappled  with  carmine  spots  surrounded  by  bluish  aure- 

36 


THE     TALE     OF     THE      FISHES 

oles.     The  dorsal  fin  is  barred  as  in  the  case  of  the 
brook  trout. 

Dr.   Kendall  is  preparing  a  monograph  on  this 
species,  illustrated  with  colored  plates. 

Specimens  of  the  Lake  Christine  trout,  received  by 
the  author  on  February  2 1  st,  1916,  through  the  courtesy 
of  Hon.  Frank  J.  Beal,  Commissioner  of  Fisheries  and 
Game  in  the  State  of  New  Hampshire,  closely  resemble 
the  brook  trout,  but  differ  from  that  fish  principally  in 
the  shape  of  the  tail,  the  absence  of  mottling  on  the  dark 
back,  and  the  peculiar  sea-green  cast.  The  red  spots 
are  numerous  and  haloed  in  blue.  The  fish  might  well 
be  described  as  almost  a  fontinalis. 


37 


AFTERWORD 

NOTES  ON  THE  PLATES 

In  illustration  of  what  I  have  said  regarding  the 
evolution  of  our  trout,  let  me  show  you  first  the  family 
tree  which  extends  its  roots  into  Mesozoic  if  not  Pale- 
ozoic time.  Back  in  the  Carboniferous  Period,  many 
times  more  than  one  million  years  ago,  when  the  United 
States  lay  under  the  ocean,  lived  a  fish  whose  fossil 
remains  are  represented  in  picture  of  fossil,  (Plate 
No.  1)  as  restored  by  Dr.  J.  S.  Newberry,  late  Pro- 
fessor of  Geology  in  Columbia  University,  and  you 
will  note  that  this  fish  of  the  Carboniferous  Sea  has 
a  well  marked  adipose  dorsal  fin,  and  hence  perhaps 
is  entitled  to  figure  as  the  remote  progenitor  of  present 
time  salmonids.  We  are  obliged  to  look  far  behind 
the  fossils  of  the  recent  Pleistocene  deposits  and  ferru- 
ginous sands  of  Idaho — where  an  entire  large  fossil 
salmonid  has  been  found  (Rhabdofario  lacustris)  — 
and  of  Oregon,  for  the  veritable  ancestor  of  our  salmon 
race.  Dr.  Jordan  records  the  print  of  an  adipose  fin 

38 


THE     TALE     OF     THE      FISHES 

in  a  period  immediately  preceding  the  Pleistocene. 
Professor  Bashford  Dean  of  Columbia  University, 
following  Zittel,  carries  the  origin  back  into  the  Cre- 
taceous Age.  Professor  Newbury  figured  the  fish  in  Plate 
No.  1  which  antedates  Cretaceous  forms  by  two  geo- 
logical ages  (Triassic  and  Jurassic),  but  appears  this 
side  of  the  devonian  or  "Age  of  Fishes."  The  broad 
gibbous  or  convex  tail  suggests  fitness  to  battle  with 
mill-race  currents.  That's  what  a  truncate  tail  is  for; 
and  it  is  conceivable  that  tails,  the  main  organs  of 
propulsion,  should  square  where  whirlpool  rapids  are 
to  be  stemmed  and  the  mechanical  needs  of  the  swim- 
mer become  imperative.  The  wide  paddle  blades  of 
the  salmon  provoked  the  comment  of  Ausonius  in  his 
Mosella : 

"Latae  cujus  vaga  verbera  caudae 

Gurgite  de  medio  summas  referuntur  in  undas" — 

The  whisking  strokes  of  his  broad  tail  bear  him 
up  from  the  bottom  of  the  raging  stream  quick  to  the 
surface. 

In  Neozoic  time,  quite  near  to  man,  although  many 
thousand  years  from  us,  trout  and  salmon  and  smelt 

39 


THE     TALE     OF      THE      FISHES 

like  the  familiar  forms  of  the  present  age,  were  spread 
over  the  Northern  Hemisphere,  the  smelt  and  salmon 
swarming  up  the  rivers  as  we  see  them  to-day — the 
male  salmon  putting  on  the  hooked  lower  jaw  in  the 
breeding  season,  a  provision  of  nature,  by  the  way,  to 
prevent  him  from  picking  up  the  eggs  of  the  female 
fish  as  fast  as  they  are  deposited,  and  for  safeguarding 
her  from  caesarian  section  by  his  sharp  teeth  when  he 
squeezes  her  abdomen  with  his  jaws  to  facilitate  the 
extrusion  of  the  eggs. 

All  this  is  inferred  from  a  few  detached  fragments 
which  it  would  be  uninteresting  to  exhibit.  The  bones 
of  this  family  being  imperfectly  ossified  and  easily  de- 
stroyed, fossil  remains  of  salmonids  are  rare. 

From  these  Pleistocene  ancestors,  we  can  readily 
follow  the  lines  of  evolution  with  their  diverging  forms 
as  indicated  in  the  diagram  of  the  Family  Tree. 

The  salmon  separated  into  the  Atlantic  and  Paci- 
fic forms,  differing  morphologically  in  the  number  of 
anal  fin  rays,  the  Pacific  Oncorhynchus  probably,  as  at 
the  present  day,  paying  the  death  penalty  for  his  first 
and  only  sexual  pleasure.  The  trout  divided  and 
subdivided  as  I  have  already  described.  While  you 


40 


THE     TALE     OF     THE      FISHES 

follow  the  genealogical  tree,  you  are  to  remember  that 
two  tendencies  inhere  in  all  fishes,  viz:  the  one,  to  re- 
main loyal  to  the  specific  tribal  form;  the  other,  to 
diverge  from  the  original  type  in  efforts  at  adaptation 
to  new  conditions  of  existence.  Recent  fishes  have 
diverged  only  in  minor  details  from  their  ancestral 
stems,  because  their  aquatic  environment  has  retained 
its  general  characteristics.  Hence  the  evolution  of  our 
fish  fauna  implies  ages  of  time. 

Plate  3  represents  the  Lake  Sunapee  saibling,  the 
upper  specimen  in  summer  uniform  as  I  first  beheld  it 
in  1 882,  the  lower  in  the  paint  of  autumn.  You  will 
remark  the  absence  of  aureole  in  all  the  American  and 
foreign  specimens  of  the  Alpine  charr  I  shall  show  you. 
To  get  the  spot  effect,  you  seem  to  be  looking  through 
holes  in  a  dark  veil  of  mist  to  catch  the  nuptial  tones 
beneath.  Note  the  shape  of  tail,  the  large  fins,  and 
the  entire  lack  of  mottling  on  the  back. 

The  Blue  Back  of  Maine  (Picture  No.  4)  is 
plainly  a  congeneric  form.  Like  the  Windermere 
charr,  it  enters  streams  to  spawn,  thus  affecting  a  habit 
of  the  brook  trout.  Unlike  its  Sunapee  relative,  which 
is  extremely  sensitive,  especially  to  changes  of  water, 

41 


THE     TALE     OF     THE      FISHES 

the  blue  back  is  remarkably  tenacious  of  life,  capable 
of  revival  even  when  kept  out  of  water  for  an  hour  or 
two.  I  have  examined  specimens  of  a  large  sea-run 
blue  back  charr  (3  to  4  Ibs.  in  weight)  from  the  God- 
bout  River  in  Canada. 

There  is  another  blueback  trout  in  Lake  Crescent, 
a  mountain  lake  of  Washington,  700  feet  above  the 
sea,  more  than  500  feet  in  depth,  and  extremely  cold. 
This  blueback  (not  a  charr,  but  a  true  Salmo)  is  a 
deep  water  dweller,  has  a  nearly  square  tail,  is  dotted 
with  small  round  black  spots,  and  attains  a  weight  of 
10  and  12  Ibs.  It  is  thought  by  some  ichthyologists 
to  be  a  form  of  the  steel  head. 

Note  how  thickly  our  blueback  is  starred  with 
small  red  spangles.  The  character  and  distribution  of 
spots  on  a  fish  may  change  in  time  with  change  of  water 
and  climate.  After  a  long  residence  in  New  Zealand, 
the  English  brown  trout  which  had  been  introduced 
there  and  had  access  to  the  ocean  lost  their  red  spots 
and  donned  the  silvery  sheen  of  the  sea  trout  (Salmo 
trutta).  And  the  trout  of  Loch  Leven,  Kinrosshire, 
Scotland,  (Salmo  levenensis)  (Picture  No.  5)  when 
removed  from  his  native  waters  is  reported  to  modify 

42 


THE     TALE     OF     THE      FISHES 

his  distinctive  coloring.  I  fished  this  loch  in  June,  1 886, 
paying  $7.50  a  day  for  the  privilege,  and  took  num- 
bers of  this  trout  which  is  one  of  the  gamest  in  the 
world.  In  my  opinion,  it  is  a  landlocked  sea  trout,  and 
I  am  supported  in  this  belief  by  such  authorities  as  Dr. 
Parnell,  Yarrel,  Sir  John  Richardson,  Dr.  Giinther, 
and  my  friend  Maxwell  Scott  of  Abbottsford.  I 
bought  30,000  eyed  ova  at  Howietoun  and  brought 
them  over  on  a  Cunard  steamer,  hatched  the  survivors 
of  the  voyage,  and  planted  20,000  in  my  stream  at 
Lake  Sunapee.  One  was  subsequently  caught  that 
weighed  10  Ibs. ;  but  as  these  silvery  fish  with  black 
spots  and  1 1  rays  to  the  anal  fin,  are  practically  indis- 
tinguishable from  ouananiche  with  which  the  lake  is 
stocked,  the  success  of  the  plant  can  not  be  determined. 
So  near  akin  to  the  Loch  Leven  trout  that  some 
observers  have  declared  both  to  be  variations  of  the 
same  species  is  the  brown  or  yellow  trout  of  Europe, 
which  I  am  noticing  here  because  it  has  been  so  largely 
introduced  into  the  streams  of  the  Eastern  United 
States.  But  from  the  view  point  of  my  investigations 
it  is  not  to  be  confounded  with  the  silver  clipper-built 
land-locked  beauty  of  Loch  Leven,  with  black  crosses 


THE     TALE     OF      THE      FISHES 

on  his  escutcheon  and  no  red  band  across  the  second 
dorsal.  The  yellow  trout  is  the  darling  of  the  British 
heart,  and  in  our  waters  it  has  won  the  affections  of 
many  an  American  angler.  The  salmo  of  the  Scottish 
loch  was  unquestionably  a  recent  sea-going  form.  The 
brown  trout  has  from  time  out  of  mind  been  a  non- 
migratory  resident  of  lake,  river  and  brook.  As  you 
see  in  the  picture  which  presents  the  markings  char- 
acteristic of  the  fish  in  its  native  burns  and  ponds,  it  is 
golden  with  purplish  reflections  along  the  back  and 
sides  and  more  or  less  covered  with  black  and  ver- 
milion spots.  The  tints  and  character  of  the  speckles 
differ  with  the  habitat.  Those  trout  that  live  on  crus- 
tacean food  flaunt  the  most  brilliant  hues  and  their 
meat  becomes  blood  red,  with  the  creamy  curd  between 
the  flesh  flakes. 

In  certain  American  streams,  the  brown  trout  has 
developed  game  qualities  superior  to  those  of  the  native 
brook  trout  sharing  its  place  of  abode.  It  puts  up  a 
better  fight  and  does  full  justice  to  its  Anglo-Saxon 
name  of  Sceo/a,  a  shooter  or  darter.  On  the  Navesink 
the  fisher  whose  creel  is  largely  made  up  of  brown 
trout  is  considered  more  expert  than  he  who  principally 

44 


THE     TALE     OF     THE      FISHES 

baskets  the  fontinalis.  It  requires  greater  skill  to  pro- 
voke a  rise  from  the  European  stranger,  for  through  his 
longer  association  with  intriguing  white  men  he  has 
learned  to  distrust  everything  offered  as  food,  and 
scorns  a  fly  clumsily  dropped  about  his  hiding  place 
or  a  live  bait  plumped  into  the  water  near  his  nose. 
He  is  so  cunning,  shy  and  suspicious  of  everything  un- 
usual, that  the  man  who  lures  him  to  his  death  must 
possess  extraordinary  intellectual  gifts  and  experienced 
skill  to  match  against  his  inherited  instincts  refined  to 
an  extreme  in  a  novel  environment.  And  this  is  why 
we  not  unfrequently  hear  of  a  big  trout  somewhere  in 
the  Catskills  holding  his  own  throughout  the  season 
in  some  deep  pool  where  he  laughs  at  the  miscellany 
of  deceptions  devised  to  tempt  him  by  importunate  sum- 
mer guests.  He  simply  knows.  He  is  never  caught 
off  guard.  He  is  never  too  hungry  to  ignore  the  de- 
natured flutter  of  the  artifical  fly,  the  cramped  wriggle 
of  an  impaled  worm,  or  the  limping  sprawl  of  a  trans- 
fixed grass-hopper.  To  circumvent  such  a  monarch  is 
a  feat  worthy  of  the  most  accomplished  craftsman. 

This  beautiful  fish  that  looks  so  innocent  grows 
rapidly  where  food  is  abundant,  and  in  the  Thames 

45 


THE     TALE     OF     THE      FISHES 

attains  a  weight  of  20  Ibs.  A  specimen  was  taken  in 
Lake  Sunapee  in  the  spring  of  1910  from  a  plant  of 
fingerlings  made  by  the  author  in  1897  that  weighed 
1 4  Ibs.  Large  brown  trout  are  voracious  scourges,  and 
for  this  reason  the  popular  immigrant  should  not  be 
planted  in  waters  inhabited  by  the  fontinalis  unless  the 
risk  of  thereby  exterminating  the  latter  fish  is  under- 
standingly  accepted. 

This  is  a  digression ;  but  now  that  we  are  in  Europe, 
mention  may  be  made  of  a  few  British  charrs,  among 
them  the  famous  Windermere  Charr  of  the  Lake  Dis- 
trict in  England,  which  runs  about  a  half-pound  in 
weight.  The  white  margins  of  the  fins  resemble  those 
of  the  Sunapee  saibling. 

Nearly  related  to  it  are  the  Enniskillin  or  Cole's 
Charr  of  Lough  Eske,  one  of  the  smallest  of  the  British 
species  never  exceeding  a  length  of  6  to  8  inches 
(A  12)  ;  and  Gray's  Charr,  the  so-called  fresh  water 
herring  of  Lough  Melvin,  Ireland  (A  12),  both  in- 
habitants of  the  depths  (all  charrs  love  cold  water), 
and  coming  into  the  shallows  during  October  and 
November  in  obedience  to  their  spawning  instincts. 

TheTorgoch  (red  belly)  or  Welsh  Charr  (A  12) 

46 


THE     TALE     OF     THE      FISHES 

inhabits  several  lakes  in  North  Wales.  It  seldom  ex- 
ceeds 12  inches  in  length;  while  its  congener,  the 
Alpine  charr  of  Scandinavia  and  the  Orkneys  (A  9) , 
in  some  localities  attains  a  length  of  three  feet. 

And  finally,  to  me  one  of  the  most  beautiful  of 
all,  the  charr  of  Loch  Killin,  (Plate  No.  8),  Inverness- 
shire,  2,000  ft.  above  sea  level  (A  13).  The  exces- 
sively developed  fins  are  noticeable. 

All  these  charrs  were  formerly  taken  when  spawn- 
ing, as  they  were  inaccessible  at  other  times.  They  are 
described  as  coming  on  to  their  beds  in  "cart  loads." 
In  common  with  the  salmon  and  trout,  they  are  thought 
to  be  of  marine  ancestry,  the  remoteness  of  their  habi- 
tats from  the  ocean  sufficiently  explaining  why  many 
modern  derivatives  have  lost  their  sea-running  instinct. 

The  chief  American  representative  of  the  forked- 
tailed  charrs  is  our  Lake  Trout  (Namaycush,  an  In- 
dian name,  togue  or  longe)  also  a  deep  water  fish  but 
a  surface-frequenter  when  the  water  is  cold  just  after 
the  ice  goes  out  in  the  spring  and  in  the  late  fall 
spawning  season.  It  is  nearer  to  the  Alpine  charr  than 
to  the  fontinalis,  having  teeth  on  the  basi-branchials  or 
so  miscalled  hyoid  bones. 


47 


THE     TALE     OF      THE      FISHES 

In  passing,  permit  me  to  remind  you  that  our  com- 
mon smelt,  with  its  European  cousin,  is  a  salmonoid, 
by  some  classified  as  a  charr,  and  that  there  are  on  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic  anadromous  as  well  as  land-locked 
forms,  anatomically  the  same  fish.  The  name  it  goes 
by  is  pure  English, — Smellit — its  scientific  name  Os- 
merus  perpetuates  the  Greek  root  osme,  an  odor — and 
you  may  recall  its  peculiar  cucumber  fragrance  which 
Willoughby  in  the  17th  Century  likened  to  that  of 
violets — "gratis  simum  violae  odorem  spirante"  The 
Germans  designate  it  as  Stink  fisch.  (Stink  in  Old 
English  means  merely  to  have  an  odor,  without  refer- 
ence to  its  quality.) 

And  now  a  moment  with  the  Dublin  Pond  trout, 
(Plate  No.  9),  the  New  England  representative 
of  the  intermediate  race,  the  Canadian  forms  of  which 
may  be  those  designated  by  Suckley  as  Sctlmo  hudson- 
icus  and  which  appear  to  be  without  mottling  on  the 
back,  possess  basi-branchial  teeth  and  favor  the  saib- 
ling  in  shape.  Old  inhabitants  speak  of  the  Dublin 
trout  as  coming  on  its  beds  "in  cartloads"  and  of 
the  farmers  feeding  bushels  of  them  to  their  hogs. 
I  ask  attention  to  the  color  markings  that  have  be- 

48 


THE     TALE     OF     THE      FISHES 

gun  to  appear  on  the  fins  but  are  absent  on  the 
back,  and  to  the  blue  aureoles  encircling  some  of 
the  spots.  The  Dublin  fish  represents  a  relic  of  a 
southward  distribution  of  the  intermediate  race  as  the 
Sunapee  and  blue  back  trouts  are  surviving  southern 
forms  of  an  Alpine  or  Arctic  charr,  the  probable  centre 
of  derivation  of  the  brook  trout  being  south  of  the  St. 
Lawrence. 

And  last  is  our  transcendent  beauty,  the  Angel  of 
the  Brooks,  among  all  the  fishes  the  Lord  Paramount 
of  our  affection  (Plate  No.  10).  It  has  taken 
millions  of  years  at  the  hands  of  the  Divine  Artificer 
to  bring  to  its  present  perfection  the  finished  product. 
In  our  comprehending  admiration  of  it,  we  are  indeed 
carried  into  the  very  presence  of  the  God  who  fashioned 
it  in  the  aeonic  march  of  events — the  God  who  kindles 
and  extinguishes  suns  and  constellations. 

When  I  was  only  a  lad  of  eleven,  good  old  Dom- 
inie Fowler  of  Monticello  introduced  this  fish  to  me. 
I  was  captivated.  I  lost  my  heart  then  and  there,  and 
never,  in  the  long  years  of  my  life,  have  I  felt  impelled 
to  ask  the  object  of  my  passion  to  return  it,  as  did  the 
poet  his  Maid  of  Athens.  And  yet  I  may  appropri- 

49 


THE     TALE     OF     THE      FISHES 

ately  conclude  in  registration  of  my  purpose  as  the 
enamored  Byron,  transferring  the  sentiment  in  impas- 
sioned Greek  from  the  Athenian  maid  to  the  idolized 

fash  form — 

Hear  my  vow  before  I  go 
Z,oc  mou  sas  agapo. 


5° 


Plate    I 

FO5SIL  OF  THE.  CARBONIFEROUS  AGE. 
5u£gestin£  an  extremely  remote  ancestry  for  our  Salmonidae 


O  ^, 

111 

• 


Plate  3 

THE.  LAKE.  SUNAPE.E.  5AIBLING 
June  and  November  garb 

Caudal  fin  less  markedly  emarginate  than  in  several  of  the  foreign  charrs. 

Specimens  on  the  spawning  beds  at  Dan  Hole  Pond  in  the  town  of 

Ossipee,  N.  H.,  where  the  Aureolus  is  native,  weighing  from 

ten  to  fifteen  pounds,  October,  1915. 


Plate  4 


THE.  BLULBACK  TROUT  OF  MAINE 

5.  oquassa,  practically  extinct  in  the   Rangeleys  through  the   depre- 
dations of  landlocked  salmon,  an  introduced  fish 


Plate  5 


THE.  SILVER  TROUT  OF  LOCH  LLVLN,  SCOTLAND 

The  Loch  Leven  trout  never  has  crimson  spots  on  its  body  nor  red  on  the 
adipose  fin.      The  common  brown  trout  is  never  without  them 


Plate  6 


THE.  CANADIAN  RE.D  TROUT    (5.  marstoni) 
Closely  related  to  S.  oquassa  and  5.  aureolus  of  Sunapee 


Plate  7 


THE  BROWN  TROUT  (Salmo  fario) 
or  Von  Behr  Trout,  the  common  brook  trout  of  Europe 


Plate  8 

THE.  PLRFLCT  CHARR  OF  LOCH  KILLIN,  SCOTLAND 
Nearest  of  all  in  general  appearance  to  the  Sunapee  saibling 


Plate  9 

THE.  GRAY  TROUT  OF  DUBLIN  POND,  N.  H. 
Nuptial  garb— an  intermediate  form 


Plate  10 

THE.  BROOK  TROUT  (5.  fontinalis)  male 

The  derived  form,  believed  by  Kendall  not  to  occur  north  of  the  drainage 

basin  of  the  Great  Lakes  and  the  St.  Lawrence  River,  nor  back  of 

the  Labrador  coast,  «$".  hudsonicus  and  6\  marstoiii.  taking 

its  place   in  the  lakes  and  streams 


BROOK  TROUT  (5.  fontinalis) 

Young  female  in    spawning    condition,  from  a  living 
specimen   7^  inches    long,    14    months   old, 
hatched  at  Wytheville,  Va.     The  con- 
spicuous parr  marks  are  note- 
worthy. 


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BERKELEY 

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REC'D  LD 
DEC  13  1957 


REC'D  LD 

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